Christmas Comes to Morning Star Page 11

  Uncle Jeremiah, however, seemed well aware that Pete had been hovering above his office the whole time. “If you’re trying to keep tabs on Molly now that you don’t live at the Helfing place,” he said with a perfectly straight face, “why not go visit her? You could do that right now, for instance, while Glenn’s speaking with me.”

  The bishop might as well have scorched Pete’s cheeks with a welding torch.

  Pete pivoted, rushing toward the mudroom to grab his coat. Riley shot out the door with him, racing in circles through the snow as Pete fumbled his keys from his pocket. As soon as the truck door was open, Riley hopped up to take his place on the passenger side, leaving the driver’s seat wet with paw prints. He gazed at Pete with his usual goofy grin, ready to ride.

  Pete cranked the ignition. He envied his dog’s ability to enjoy relationships without getting entangled in the social niceties—or the second-guessing that went with getting closer to the first woman he’d taken an interest in for a while.

  Am I keeping tabs on Molly because I’m afraid Glenn will win her away from me? If he wasn’t in the picture—or staying in her home—would I be as interested in her?

  Pete let out a mirthless laugh. She’s exactly like Detweiler described her: What a woman!

  He pounded the steering wheel. It had been truly stupid—not to mention insensitive—to eavesdrop on a confidential counseling session. It was no way to treat a longtime friend, either. And when Molly found out what he’d done, she’d know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Pete Shetler was a loser.

  As he grabbed the gearshift, another reality smacked him like the cold air that shot from the vents: if he was trying to prove himself to Molly—to show her that he’d become worthy of her notice—driving his pickup was the last thing he should do. Amish men didn’t ride in English motorized vehicles on Sunday . . . much less own them.

  Detweiler’s horse-drawn rig was hitched to the railing on the side of Uncle Jeremiah’s house. Detweiler wore broadfall trousers, dark shirts, and a black felt hat—and his face was framed in a beard that matched his raven-black hair, befitting a married man who’d long ago taken his vows to the church. Detweiler might be grieving his many recent losses, but he still came out way ahead on the eligibility scale with which Molly would measure potential mates.

  For several seconds Pete stared out the windshield, now fogged by Riley’s breath. He switched off the engine.

  “Riley, we’re in deep doo-doo,” he muttered. “How are we gonna dig ourselves out?”

  The dog yipped, wondering why they weren’t getting anywhere.

  And didn’t that paint an accurate picture of his current situation? Pete saw himself in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, when he was old enough to know better—whether that meant the stunt he’d just pulled in Mammi’s sewing room or automatically heading to his truck to drive away from the mess he’d made instead of facing it head-on.

  Pete’s sigh fogged the windshield even more. “If Molly’s going to take me seriously, I’ll have to join the church,” he said quietly.

  Riley barked impatiently, as though Pete’s admission hadn’t gone far enough.

  “And I’ll have to ditch these jeans and my plaid flannel shirts.”

  The dog woofed more insistently, pawing the dashboard.

  Pete smiled glumly at the golden, rubbing the dog’s neck. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll have to sell this truck, too. I’ll have to invest in a buggy so I’ll look like a responsible family man—like Detweiler, except blond.”

  Riley let out a bark that morphed into a howl.

  “Okay, you’re right. I’ll have to be better than Glenn,” Pete amended. “But how can I pull that off? He’s got two cute little boys and a dat who needs some extra love. Who ever thought that having a family would make him such a chick magnet? How can I possibly compete with—”

  Exasperated, the dog pawed Pete’s elbow, growling in that playful way that seemed to imitate speech. Riley was eager to hightail it down the highway, but the answer to Pete’s predicament suddenly came to him, plain as day.

  “I’ve got you, Riley!” he crowed. “Molly likes you better than me, so we’ve got to work that to our advantage. You’ve been trying to tell me that all along, and I’ve finally caught on.”

  Riley, ever the optimist, cocked his head expectantly at Pete’s brighter tone of voice.

  Rather than falling for his dog’s plea for a truck ride, however, Pete pocketed his keys and opened the door. “Yep, that’s it. You’re going to be my front man, Riley. Because we all know—especially Molly—that you’re way smarter than I am about these things.”

  Pete slid to the ground and held the door open, not surprised that his dog remained in the cab for a few moments before hopping down into the snow with a reluctant sigh.

  “We also have to remember that Glenn’s working on his house—feathering his nest,” Pete remarked as he started toward the back door of his uncle’s home. “That’s quite a nice Christmas gift he can entice Molly with, so we have to come up with something she’ll think is even more wonderful. I should be working on it—should’ve started on it weeks ago.”

  Riley sat down in the snowy yard, gazing directly at Pete. It was a stalling tactic; the dog was hoping for a change of mind that would lead to the ride he wanted.

  “You’re right again, boy,” Pete said as he continued toward the mudroom. “I need to sit my butt down—just like you!—and get on with this gift planning. And—and I know just what I should do! Why didn’t I think of this before?”

  With a resigned woof, Riley followed him inside. When Mammi sent him a questioning glance from her seat on the sofa, Pete waved at her. He took the stairs two at a time—heading for his own room—and grabbed a pencil and the large tablet of paper he used for sketching his building projects. Leaning against the headboard of his bed, Pete drew the Helfings’ kitchen from memory.

  “How many times have the twins mentioned things that needed fixing?” he murmured as his pencil danced across the page. “That room needs a total renovation—like I’m giving Lydianne and Mammi. I could spruce up a few other rooms, too, and build some shelves in their storage areas, and make their whole house a lot more efficient, because—”

  Pete grinned at Riley, who’d curled up on the floor for a nap. “Because the twins love that place, and they hate to be apart, so I’ll be giving them exactly what they want! It’s a better offer than Glenn’s, because the Helfing sisters will still be together after Molly and I get hitched.”

  Molly’s name made Riley raise his head in the hope that they’d go over to see her. But Pete focused again on his sketches.

  “This is working on the Sabbath, you know,” he confessed under his breath. “But under the circumstances, it’s the lesser of several evils, ain’t so? Since I haven’t yet taken my vows to join the church—but I’ve come to see the wisdom of doing that—we’ll hope God considers this as an improvement in my attitude.”

  Chapter 12

  As Jo stepped out of the café ahead of Michael and his dat on Sunday morning, the sun made the snow-covered hills around them glisten like a million tiny diamonds. After a hearty breakfast in the family-owned restaurant where the Wengerds often stopped on their way back to Queen City, she inhaled the crisp winter air. She would never forget her mother’s words as she’d carried her suitcase to the Wengerds’ rig, but pancakes, sausages, and fried apples had settled some of the tension of her departure.

  So that’s the way of it? You’re taking up with the Wengerds and leaving me behind? You’ll face some serious consequences for this, daughter.

  The men had been waiting for her at their buggy, so Jo hadn’t lingered to make amends with her mother—because short of staying home, there was no possibility of that. She’d clambered into the buggy ahead of Michael and Nelson, grateful that she could gaze out over the dark countryside for several miles without her tears being so obvious.

  Had her companions overheard Mamm’s remarks? Jo was too mor
tified—too upset—to ask them. She was grateful that they’d kept the conversation light and hadn’t tried to console her or delve into the reasons behind her mother’s veiled threat.

  Once again Jo entered the rig ahead of the men and settled into her spot against its far side. She felt strange riding with someone other than her mother or her maidel friends, and she hoped that long-legged Michael didn’t feel cramped sitting between her and his dat. She was more aware than ever that he was a string bean of a fellow, while she was built wide, with more padding than was fashionable.

  As the light of early morning filled the rig, however, Michael’s shy smile reassured her. He seemed as nervous as she was, yet didn’t it feel wonderful to be sitting so close to him? His gray-blue eyes were wider than usual, as though he enjoyed the way the rig’s rocking brought them into constant contact—more than was socially acceptable for a couple that wasn’t courting yet.

  “Not a lot farther now,” Nelson remarked as he urged the horse up to speed. “From here, the countryside gets hillier, so on this narrow two-lane road we have to be more careful about cars popping up behind us too quickly.”

  Michael sighed. “That’s how Mamm died. I think about it every time we get to this leg of the trip.”

  As Jo’s heart shot up into her throat, she grasped his hand. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “Unfortunately, English traffic is a part of Plain life,” Nelson put in softly. “The way we understand it, the truck that crashed into Verna’s rig came over the hill so fast that neither driver had time to react. At least we have the small comfort of knowing that she died immediately, without suffering.”

  Ah, but the living always suffer longer than the dead.

  Nodding, Jo kept her remarks about death and suffering to herself. It was enough that Michael was still clasping her hand and didn’t seem inclined to let it go.

  Jo swallowed hard. After so many months of daydreaming about handsome, gentle Michael, it was a thrill to be holding his hand—and even better, he wasn’t hiding the connection from his dat. Would Nelson set rules for their behavior during her visit? Would he watch them every moment so he could report back to Mamm that they hadn’t spent any time unchaperoned?

  “Over the top of this next hill—where the warning sign about horse-drawn vehicles is—was where Verna left us,” Nelson remarked quietly. “Michael and I always observe a few moments of silence in her memory when we reach that spot, and we pray to be spared the same fate. We don’t talk again until we’re far enough beyond the hill to be relatively safe.”

  The men’s sentiment brought tears to Jo’s eyes. The atmosphere inside the rig grew still as the horse pulled them through the zone where the Wengerds’ wife and mother had passed, and she bowed her head in respect. What a horrible way to leave this earthly life—without getting to say any sort of goodbye. After several more seconds of the clip-clop, clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the blacktop being the only sound breaking the silence, the Wengerds relaxed.

  “Just another couple of miles,” Michael remarked, pointing ahead of them. “Once we’re around the next curve, you’ll see the back part of our property and some of the greenhouses.”

  Hundreds of times Jo had ridden through the Missouri countryside, now covered with snow, yet the moment she caught sight of the semicylindrical structures with their metal framework and translucent, rounded sides, her heart quickened. A large white road sign with deep green lettering caught her eye.

  WELCOME TO WENGERD NURSERY

  MAIN ENTRANCE ¼ MILE

  “This looks much larger than the garden centers out our way,” she remarked. “I bet you keep a lot of local folks employed during the spring and summer.”

  “And fall, right through December,” Michael added proudly. “Our mums and pumpkins are a big draw—”

  “And we kept most of our employees on longer this year, tending the expanded crop of poinsettias,” Nelson put in. “Come January, they’ll get some time off.”

  “But we anticipate so much more business at The Marketplace this spring, we’ll start more seedlings in February,” Michael finished with a smile. “And we have you to thank for that, Jo. Renovating that old stable was your idea, ain’t so?”

  Jo’s cheeks flushed with his compliment. Her whole being felt light and alive when he squeezed her hand. “My four maidel friends had a hand in that, too,” she pointed out. “And if Bishop Jeremiah hadn’t taken up the reins and driven the idea home with our church leaders, The Marketplace wouldn’t exist.”

  “The way Jeremiah tells it, you were the woman who envisioned possibilities where everyone else saw a dilapidated stable,” Nelson said. “It’s highly unusual for a woman to talk up such an enterprise and then do the grunt work required to bring it to fruition.”

  Jo shrugged. “Maybe I’m just odd—and too outspoken by half,” she blurted out.

  Michael’s blue-eyed gaze intensified as the rig turned off the county highway and onto the snow-packed lane that led to the nursery showroom.

  “Phooey on that,” he said under his breath. “You have every reason to claim your accomplishments, Jo. It’s a real balancing act to spearhead such a successful business venture while keeping your humility intact. Don’t let anyone—especially not your mamm—tell you any different.”

  Jo was speechless. The intensity of Michael’s words, coupled with the way his clear gray-blue eyes focused on her, left her unable to think—much less voice any sort of reply for several moments.

  “You fellows are very nice to say such things,” she finally murmured. “But you’re also businessmen who saw an opportunity, and you took it up and ran with it. I can’t think you’d still be making the weekly trip to Morning Star—much less expanding your nursery to such an extent—if your profits didn’t justify it.”

  Michael and his dat exchanged a smile that suggested they’d discussed this topic many times . . . and it also held a private meaning she couldn’t interpret.

  “Once again you’re proving your own wisdom when it comes to managing The Marketplace, Jo,” Nelson remarked as he brought the horse to a halt between the nursery showroom and a modest white house. “How about if I unload the luggage while you two look at the poinsettias? Always feels gut to stretch your legs after the morning’s ride.”

  Michael’s dat stepped down from the rig and went around to the back of it. Michael slid out next and then reached up as though he might grasp Jo around the waist to lift her down.

  Startled—and concerned that he might crumple beneath her weight—Jo quickly grabbed one of his hands, allowing him to steady her as she stepped down. The last thing she wanted was to begin her visit by having Michael figure out just how much heavier she was than he—a fact that would occur to him soon enough. She wanted to enjoy as much time with him as possible before he backed away from a potential romantic relationship with a woman of her height and size.

  Michael’s shy smile reassured her. Jo suspected he wasn’t any more accomplished at impressing potential partners than she was. It was comforting to believe he hadn’t left a string of broken hearts in his wake as he’d matured into his late twenties. Her mother’s accusation that he was stringing her along simply didn’t fit the Michael Wengerd who was gesturing toward the lane that led to their greenhouses.

  “These units are where we grow our hothouse tomatoes,” he remarked as they walked between the first two buildings. “We supply the local supermarkets with them throughout the winter.”

  Jo’s eyes widened as she peered in through the glass sides. Long green tomato vines were growing side by side, winding up ropes that hung from the ceiling! “I never imagined tomatoes could grow that way,” she murmured in amazement.

  “And here’s where we raise the Christmas cacti and amaryllis,” he continued. “Let’s look at the rest of this stuff later. Far as I’m concerned, these buildings up ahead are the star attractions.”

  The excitement thrumming in Michael’s voice made Jo’s pulse accelerate wit
h anticipation as she followed him to a few greenhouses with heavy-duty plastic sides.

  Michael paused in front of the first building’s door. His eyes blazed a clear blue, as though they’d gotten lighter and more sparkly because he was ready to share a wonderful secret. “We have to shut the door immediately behind us to maintain our climate control,” he explained patiently. “To keep the plants in optimal condition, we can’t let the temperature dip below fifty-eight degrees.”

  Jo nodded eagerly. When he gestured for her to precede him inside, she stepped quickly over the threshold and immediately stopped. Her mouth dropped open. The enormous roomful of deep red blooms shifted subtly in the current from the ventilation system, surpassing her wildest imaginings of how glorious hundreds of poinsettias would look all together. The postcard he’d sent her paled in comparison to the rich splendor of the thousands of crimson leaves filling the huge room.

  She was so enthralled, she didn’t realize she’d stopped right in front of the doorway. Michael pressed against her back as he shut the door behind them.

  “Oh! I’m sorry—”

  “I’m not,” he whispered. “The poinsettias are even more fabulous when I’m looking at them over your shoulder, Jo.”

  She wanted to laugh and cry and sing all at once as he gently grasped her shoulders and remained standing close to her. He could have nudged her out of his way or reminded her to keep moving, but Michael had chosen to remain in close contact. Even with the thick layers of their winter coats between them, Jo reeled from the nearness of him.

  Then his words sank in: Michael was looking over her shoulder. And if she dared, she could lean back and rest her head on his shoulder.

  She’d always considered herself too tall and ungainly, certain no man would ever feel comfortable with her height and width, yet Michael was taller than she. And as Jo thought back, she couldn’t recall a time when he’d ever seemed uncomfortable with her height—or implied that he found anything wrong with her size, either.